Posts Tagged ‘great lakes titanic society’

I just recently heard from the folks at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland that the science center will be hosting the Titanic artifact exhibit starting June 1. The exhibit was last in Cleveland in 2002, during the 90th anniversary year. Janet White and I, and many others in the region with an interest in or personal connections to the Titanic were very involved with the exhibit during that time, providing family mementoes for display or doing programs or serving as volunteers. The return of the artifacts recovered from Titanic’s wreck site offers another opportunity to tell the state’s and Northeast Ohio’s Titanic stories. I hope that many throughout the region will be touched by those stories.

In addition, in 2002, a group of us created the informal organization, the Great Lakes Titanic Society, and put on a conference titled “Titanic: From Sinking to Salvage.” You can find photos from that event on the society’s Scrapbook page (scroll all the way to the bottom, it’s the very first entry):

Here are a couple of photos from 2002. They were taken at a special event the science center hosted to give those with an interest in or connection to the Titanic a chance to gather and talk to science center staffers and share their family stories and mementoes.

Mary Ann gets up close and personal with a Titanic headlamp that was on display in the Great Lakes Science Center auditorium for this special event in 2002.

Mary Kerola, daughter of Youngstown-bound Titanic survivor Shaneene George, looks over some newspaper articles about her mother with Janet White during the special science center event in 2002. When the exhibit was in Cleveland in 2002, Mary got to see the recovered lifeboat davit from Collapsible C, the very lifeboat in which her mother was rescued. Mary was 98 when this photo was taken. She died in 2009 at the age of 104.

In 2002, the Great Lakes Science Center featured a special room highlighting The Northern Ohio Story during the Titanic exhibit run. They hope to have a similar display this time. Here’s a photo of one section of the 2002 display:

Each panel in “The Northern Ohio Story” display at the Great Lakes Science Center in 2002 told the story of one or more passengers with Ohio connections.

I hope everyone in the region gets a chance to see the exhibit! — Mary Ann